I track people who are disrupting the world of mobile technology. Non-conformists, innovators and agitators are this blog's unsung heroes, from entrepreneurs to scientists, to rebellious hackers. I'm the author of "We Are Anonymous: Inside the Hacker World of LulzSec, Anonymous and the Global Cyber Insurgency", (Little Brown, 2012) which The New York Times called a "lively, startling book that reads as 'The Social Network' for group hackers." I recently relocated to Forbes' San Francisco office, and was previously Forbes' London bureau chief from 2008-12, interviewing British billionaires like Philip Green and controversial figures like Mohammed Al Fayed; I wrote last year's billionaires cover story on Russia's Yuri Milner, and have broken stories like the Facebook-Spotify partnership in 2011. Before all this I had stints at the BBC and as a radio journalist. You can watch me on 'The Daily Show' here. If you have a story idea or tip, e-mail me at polson@forbes.com or follow me on Twitter: parmy.

A Billionaire Could Quietly Hatch From Angry Birds IPO

Rovio CEO Mikael Hed poses with two 'Angry Bird' characters at the company premises in Espoo on January 21, 2011. (Image credit: AFP/Getty Images via @daylife)

Angry Birds is still going strong. Its parent company, Rovio, earned $67.6 million on sales of $106.3 million last year, and the Finnish firm is now preparing itself (for real this time, apparently) for an IPO that could take place in New York or even Hong Kong, (where the Angry Birds game and plush toys sell like hot cakes).

Nine billion may be too high, but even if an IPO promises half that amount, or the $2.25 billion that Rovio is said to spurned from Zynga last year, it would mark one of Rovio’s long-time leaders as a dollar billionaire. That person is Kaj Hed, the chairman of Rovio, father of Rovio CEO Mikael Hed (pictured above) and uncle to its chief operating officer, Niklas Hed.

Kaj, is by a long shot, the majority owner of Rovio, holding a 69.7% of the company’s equity through his investment vehicle Trema International Holdings BV, according to information gleaned from Finland’s government registry by Finnish financial magazine Arvopaperi, which was listed on the website Arctic Startup last February.

The second biggest chunk of equity, about 20%, is held by venture capital funds Accel and Atomico, who together invested $42 million into Rovio last year. CEO Mikael owns a surprisingly small 0.6% of the company, Nilkas Hed has 4.3%, and Chief Marketing Officer Peter Vesterbacka, a.k.a. the Mighty Eagle of Rovio, owns 3.1%, according to Arctic Startup.

What’s intriguing is that Kaj has largely been in the background of Rovio’s very public story till now. You won’t find him on the Management Team page of Rovio’s website, which shows bios and photos of Mikael, Niklas and Peter, wearing red Angry Birds hoodies and gesturing at colorful toys.

When Forbes asked Rovio for a photo or bio of Kaj Hed, the response was that there was no such material on him. “He has decided to stay in the background,” a spokeswoman said, without wishing to comment further.

Little is known about Kaj Hed. He is currently the founder and CEO of Helsinki-based Global Inter Partners AB. Also, he almost never gives interviews, preferring his son and other members of Rovio’s management team to get the limelight. A bit of digging finds him quoted in this obscure, 2001 Financial News story about the future of the Internet, championing the growth of “real-time payments.” The story features a highly-pixellated photo of a pensive-looking man in glasses, with “Kaj Hed, Trema” the caption. Trema is the name of the financial software business Hed founded around 1992, according to his LinkedIn profile, and which he sold in 2006 to private equity investors for $150 million, according to Wired.

At around the same time or just before, he had invested 1 million euros into his son Mikael’s fledgling company, Rovio. There appears to have followed some difficult family dynamics. Mikael left the company soon after, later recounting to Wired that his father had been “very hands on” at the time. Mikael then came back in 2009 when Rovio was on the financial brink, making a deal with Kaj to let him do things his way.

Together, Mikael and his cousin Niklas developed a calculated plan to create an iPhone game that would conquer Apple‘s App Store. They eventually came up with Angry Birds. Rovio has been growing at light speed ever since, and Hed senior has no doubt thanked that early decision to bankroll his son.

Angry Birds is now the most successful iPhone game of all time, with 648 million downloads. Rovio has meanwhile been on a hiring spree, with its employee roster swelling from 28 to 224 just last year. Though Rovio once made dozens of other games, it has been milking those Angry, feathered friends, decorating its headquarters in Finland with giant cartoon images of the game’s birds, and deriving 30% of its revenues from merchandise, everything from Halloween costumes, to an Angry Birds cook book. So far, Rovio has been spot on with its bold decision to focus on one hugely successful game, benefiting from the ever-increasing proliferation of smartphones and the viral power of casual, addictive game play.

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Hey, The gist is an idea can make fortunes, while nokia is struggling with smartphone business due to lack of innovative products at right time , Rovio became famous with the right innovation. Also see the contrast in number of employees which nokia and rovio has ……. Companies need to understand the market nerves & experience future in present to serve present in best innovative way possible.

Good point – Nokia has more than 100,000 employees, Rovio 224, and they are both valued as multi-billion dollar companies. On Nokia though, I would point out it looked a lot more “innovative” when it was as young as Rovio is today. If it gets to live as long as Nokia I’m sure Rovio will have the same challenges of reinvention and flexibility.

OK… it also means innovating after a few years inside a company may be the worst phenomena which companies have to go through.

Its kind of Mid-Age crisis where in only guts, thinking process, innovation helps. You just cannot go away from the old thinking which has become part of daily company life. But i’ve to say that there are many companies who are brilliant to tackle Mid-Age crisis.

Question now before companies is how to make innovative thinking mandatory to each employee ? Also how employees are sure that their innovative voice is heard always !